Brits To Crash Test a Scramjet 314
hywel_ap_ieuan writes "The BBC is reporting that a the "Hyshot consortium" will be testing a scramjet called Hyshot III in Australia on Friday. The fun part: "If everything goes to plan, the experiment will begin at a height of 35 km. As the engine continues its downward path the fuel in the scramjet is expected to automatically ignite. The scientists will then have just six seconds to monitor its performance before the £1m engine eventually crashes into the ground.""
They should pool resources (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They should pool resources (Score:3, Funny)
"Brist say: As we suspected, scramjets and crashing into earth don't mix."
Re:They should pool resources (Score:3, Funny)
The best kind of Science! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The best kind of Science! (Score:2)
You must be thinking of computer science
cranky! (Score:4, Funny)
Pilot's motto: (Score:5, Funny)
> "If everything goes to plan, the experiment will begin at a height of 35 km. As the engine continues its downward path the fuel in the scramjet is expected to automatically ignite. The scientists will then have just six seconds to monitor its performance before the £1m engine eventually crashes into the ground."
Revised for 2006: "We'll settle for one out of three these days... as long as you have a hell of a lot of it to compensate."
Re:Pilot's motto: (Score:5, Funny)
Scramjet pointed straight down. Airspeed, check.
Getting paid to destructively test a million pound device, wow. That'd be so cool. Brains, check.
Looks like they've got 3/3.
Re:Pilot's motto: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pilot's motto: (Score:2)
Re:Pilot's motto: (Score:2)
Re:Pilot's motto: (Score:4, Funny)
New pilot's motto: "Always review the flight plan before committing to a mission."
Re:Pilot's motto: (Score:2)
New pilot's motto: "Always review the flight plan before committing to a mission."
New New Pilot's Motto: A volunteer is someone who didn't understand the question.
not the right way to start (Score:5, Funny)
Then again, the British did usher in the passener jet age with the Comet [bbc.co.uk].
Re:not the right way to start (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not the right way to start (Score:4, Interesting)
They weren't the first, although Boeing did do a lot of early work.
During WW-II Boeing thoroughly analyzed the bombers that returned shot up from missions, noting carefully where the damage was. Then they improved the design of the places where the damage wasn't*, because planes which had been damaged there obviously hadn't made it back.
(* For the pedantic, in some cases they made the design change elsewhere, e.g. putting redundant systems in a different place. Douglas didn't learn that lesson until a DC-10 cargo door tore loose, simultaneously ripping all three "redundant" hydraulic lines to the tail because they routed through the same area.)
Re:not the right way to start (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not the right way to start (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Whittle [wikipedia.org]
entertainingly, the new US show "American Inventor" credited the invention of the motor car and the computer to the Americans last week. doooooh!
meanwhile, this scramjet isn't even by the brits, it the aussies. It's being reported by the BBC, hence the confusion
Re:not the right way to start (Score:2)
Re:not the right way to start (Score:2)
Re:not the right way to start (Score:2)
Re:not the right way to start (Score:4, Informative)
The automobile is one of those trophy inventions that every country would like to take credit for and no one country really can. Considering that Henry Ford made it practical with the assembly line, I think we've got at least as much claim as the frenchmen who made an off-road steam engine or the British who poked around with internal combustion.
Actually, it would seem that the Germans can quite legitimately take credit for the car. Three people in particular are responsible for inventing the major components of the car engine: Gottlieb Daimler [wikipedia.org], Wilhelm Maybach and Karl Benz [wikipedia.org]. They had a whole automobile industry on the go before Henry Ford streamlined the production process (1913). Ford did do a great deal to make cars much more popular, but he was more an industrialist than an inventor.
The French industry was based largely on designs by Maybach, and I'm not sure that the English had very much to do with the internal combustion engine used in cars - the valve gear came from George Stephenson (the Englishman who also invented the steam engine), but the use of petroleum, the injection system, accelerator and so on were all developed by the three Germans. We do, of course, have to thank the English for pneumatic inflatable tyres (some guy by the name of John Dunlop, in particular) - without which, we'd have a very bumpy ride.
-- Steve
Not the Brits (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not the Brits (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA: "The scramjet engine, known as Hyshot III, has been designed by British defence firm Qinetiq."
There's this concept called "international collaboration". It's not actually impossible for a project to involve people from more than one country. Yes, and one of the Australians you name is in charge. But the scramjet engine that's being tested on Friday was designed by the British. A few days later they'll be testing another one that was designed in Japan. After that, there's an Australian-designed one lined up too.
We're talking big money international collaboration here. Stalker and Paull aren't working with a budget of tin cans any more.
Re:Not the Brits (Score:5, Informative)
The first much-ballyhooed flight may have failed (because the Pegasus rocket exploded, not because of a problem with the scramjet), but the Hyper-X [nasa.gov] program is considered a rousing success, with two successful hypersonic flights and a new jet-powered speed record of Mach 9.6.
That being said, I applaud the efforts of the University of Queensland, who is helping push the limits of aerospace knowledge. If they can do that on a shoestring budget, then that's all the better.
Re:Not the Brits (Score:2)
You're right about them doing quite a lot with very little though. Other thing to bear in mind is its more
7 figures vs 9, and NASA DID NOT FAIL (Score:3, Informative)
Wow. I don't know where to begin. Oh, I know- how about the fact that NASA DID NOT FAIL [nasa.gov](article is from 2004, by the way- and they hit Mach 10).
before the £1m engine eventually crashes into the ground
A million British Pounds is US$1.7 million, which would put it firmly in the "seven figures" realm for JUST THE ENGINE. So I would think it would be reasonable
These people were doing the NASA research (Score:2)
Re:These people were doing the NASA research (Score:2)
Heck, most of it doesn't even happen in Texas. It's just that the Johnson Space Center is the home for manned spaceflight, so it gets all the attention.
Re:Not the Brits (Score:2)
To quote from a SpaceDaily article [spacedaily.com] at the time of the last test:
The Hyshot Consortium partners include Astrotech Space Operations, DTI and GAS
Re:Not the Brits (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not the Brits (Score:4, Informative)
Not a dupe. They tried this 5 years ago and it didn't work. Now they're trying it again.
FTA:
Re:Not the Brits (Score:3, Funny)
I know nothing about this stuff (Score:4, Funny)
but couldn't they build it to survive impact into the ocean, and then retrieve it?
I seem to remember the US space program doing this when they first went to the moon. And that man who singlehandedly built the rocket and went to the moon. What was his name? Apollo Creed? Anyways Tom Hanks was really great in that movie. Forest Gump I think it was.
Re:I know nothing about this stuff (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I know nothing about this stuff (Score:2, Informative)
At those speeds, we don't have any materials that will survive impact with the ocean. In fact, the Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, when they parachute gently into the ocean, sustain considerable damage to the aft end (nozzle & stuff IIRC). It's worth it to salvage the casings.
Yes, I am a rocket scientist (well, I used to be).
Re:I know nothing about this stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Why spend the money to land it safely and retreive it? What would you do with it? There is no need to fly it again they already did the test. There are no plans to fly a second test with the same hardware they will do that with other hardware. Also, and more importently an aircraft that can fly at both hypersonic and slower speeds is _much_ more complex then one that can fly at only one speed
Crash! (Score:5, Funny)
On its descent the engine is expected to reach a top speed of Mach 7.6 or over 9,000km/ hour.
I think crash is a bit of an understatement!
Re:Crash! (Score:4, Funny)
How right you are! I'd expect something more like an Earth-Shattering KABOOM!
Re:Crash! (Score:2)
Let's hope... (Score:2)
... the crash doesn't awaken the green ants. I still have things I want to do!
Not the first time (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/hyshot/default
you know... (Score:4, Insightful)
good job, brits.
Re:you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure blame the plane flight for DVTs. I mean, forget about the fact you weight 300 lbs (around the same as your cholesterol level), smoke, take birth control pills and are diabetic. It's the plane trip that caused it...
Re:you know... (Score:2)
When some criminal shoots you in the arm, and you die of a heart-attack, they get charged with murder. You are responsible for problems you cause, irregardless of such contributing factors.
Personally, I'd be more comfortable being loaded into an airplane in a coffin, rather than a coach seat
Re:you know... (Score:2)
Only on Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Only on Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
They should have just talked to the Americans (Score:5, Funny)
poor pilot (Score:2, Funny)
Pilot Needed? (Score:2)
Only can imagine the initial conversation... (Score:3, Funny)
"So let's see, in short your plan is to fly a plane up to 35 kilometers in height above the mainland of Australia, switch off the engine, let it drop down with a highly experimental engine - this 'scramjet' - that you suppose would then go off automatically and accelerate the vehicle to a phenomenal speed, finishing it all off with a nice crash of that same million dollar plane into the ground ?"
"Oh yeah mate, blimey, that's it - you got it in one row !"
"You ever done this before ?"
"Nah, if I would ave, I wouldn't be standing here mate, eh ?"
"And this 'scramjet', it would ignite automatically ?"
"Sure, that's what the manual says anyhow"
"And while it sores over our Australian mainland with this high velocity, and when it enters the ground in the final stage, it would not have reached any, say, 'populated' areas?"
"Nah mate, only a couple'a'dingos probably. Everything should be fine, unless things go wrong, but that's why we're testing eh, aye?"
"You're absolutely right, I guess... Here's your money, and now don't screw up !"
"Sure thing, won't screw up, and I will tell the same to the monkey that drives the controls ! Cheers mate !"
Re:Only can imagine the initial conversation... (Score:2)
Now this isn't aboot Canadians, is it?
It would have seemed more logical... (Score:3, Interesting)
(Hydrogen-fuelled ramjets are useless above Mach 5, but that's about when the scramjet should ignite, so you really wouldn't need a whole lot of additional acceleration at that point. If they've got the ignition point within the limit, you could even switch directly from one to the other.)
The other thing I don't like is that this is destructive testing. It's inescapable, given the approach they're using, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Their data collection has to be wireless, since no recording device is going to survive a mach 7 impact, but wireless is relatively slow. This means that they're going to be limited in what they can collect - what parameters, what accuracy, what resolution, etc.
Normally, this wouldn't matter a great deal. But we're talking mach 7 speeds in a far denser atmosphere than most existing hypersonic travel (such as the shuttle re-entry) have taken place in. I believe there have been two successful scramjet flights in the past, so we have a little information on what happens under those conditions, but it seems somewhat... brave... if they are assuming they can interpolate between the few data points they'll be able to collect -and- extrapolate beyond the six seconds of flight.
Again, I'm sure they have their reasons, but for novel engines under novel conditions, I'd have thought that getting as much data as humanly possible would be worth almost any additional effort.
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:3, Informative)
The recently-launched SPACEWAY-3 communications satellite sports 10Gbps of bandwidth from geosynchronous orbit. I do not think wireless is as slow as you might be thinking.
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:2)
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:2)
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah....This ending pretty much explains the whole comment. You must be a physicist....certainly NOT an engineer. There is always diminishing returns on investment. You must pick a price point evaluate what you will get out of any test. More data is almost always better, but somebody has to pay out in the real (non-university) world.
Other errors:
There are solid state data recorders specifically made for high speed impacts. On the order of 100,000 G's. Place one in the back behind something heavy/solid and you shouldn't have any problem.
Wireless can hit 10,000,000 bits/second with one channel. Throw a couple of S-band channels and you have a stout communication line to the ground. Plus the hardware (Rx stations) is already in place at most ranges.
I assume they are doing the burn on the way down because they couldn't afford a rocket big enough to accelerate up to M=7.6 in a dense atmosphere. Plus they don't have to deal with all the heating issues while they are accelerating. Take a nice gentle ride at speeds up to M=3 or 4 and then use gravity to assist you up to the desired speed for the test. As an ENGINEER, I like their simple, low-cost solution to their test.
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:2)
Yeah, that's true. (Score:2)
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:4, Informative)
Also, what do you propose for a simple up & down trajectory that isn't parabolic?
As for destructive testing, there would need to be a lot more work done to save a prototype that will never be used again and the primary datapoint they are looking doesn't require much resolution.
"Did it light? Good."
KISS!
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:2)
The ramjets fire at probably 32-34 Km (35 would b
Re:It would have seemed more logical... (Score:2)
Well, yeah. (Score:2)
(They can't necessarily get the internal info from a one second test in a wind tunne
Does this mean that (Score:4, Funny)
Well, aviation has a 100% success rate... (Score:2)
Re:Well, aviation has a 100% success rate... (Score:2)
No, that means gravity works.
... it's landing and controlling properly that's complicated.
Anybody can achieve a ballistic trajectory
Otherwise, I'm sure some drunken people with a trebuchet achieved the first flights in the middle ages. Kinda like these idiots [brettmartin.org] who decided to do just that.
And, you gotta ask, just how many pints would you have to drink to decide you wanted to be launched out of such a device?
I can't wait... (Score:4, Funny)
Scramjet (Score:2, Funny)
Uk to Aus (Score:2, Funny)
looks like ther planning on taking the direct route....
ScramCam? (Score:2)
Never have these words been heard together (Score:2)
Sounds like a British project to me :)
Somebody has to say it... (Score:2)
Six seconds? (Score:3, Funny)
-At-choo!
-Dude, WTF? Hit the RECORD BUTTON!
-What?
*CRASH*
-Ah, nevermind.
A thought: Possible launch vehicle? (Score:2)
Are there any real rocket scientists out there who can correct/disprove my hypothesis?
Some hurdles (Score:4, Informative)
The engineering behind the ramjet and scramjet couldn't be any more different. Ramjets are basically scramjet engines that purposefully slow the air intake so that combustion can occur. In a scramjet the big problem is that the air is moving so fast that when you ignite the fuel/air mixture, the combustion will actually take place outside the engine. It would be ridiculous to slow the air, so the problem lies in how you get the mixture to ignite sooner. To this end they are testing ionizing mixtures, etc. Some scramjet geometries are highly classified.
Here's a good link that talks about the combustion issue: http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-4/p24.htm l [aip.org]
And of course some general information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet [wikipedia.org]
Re:Some hurdles (Score:2)
I'll tell you the same thing I tell my wife....! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like... (Score:5, Funny)
The scientists will then have just six seconds to monitor its performance before the £1m engine eventually crashes into the ground.
Replace the word "scientists" with "consumers", "£1m" with "$5b", and "engine" with "OS." Also, add the phrase "If it boots," before the statement.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:2)
Re:Sounds like... (Score:2)
The somewhat inside story (Score:2, Informative)
A colleague of mine is the project manager for the HyShot [uq.edu.au] trial. It is being conducted at the Australian Defence Force's [defence.gov.au] Woomera test and evaluation range [defence-sa.com] and shooting north-west across the Australian desert.
Woomera [powerup.com.au] and nearby areas has a long history of trials; several British designed rockets were trialled there, and several satellites were launched to earth orbit. Maralinga [arpansa.gov.au] was one Australian site of British atom bomb tests in the late '40s and '50s.
HyShot is intended to be recovered, but it is a larg
That bird gun thing (Score:2)
Re:One million GBP? (Score:5, Informative)
However scramjets do not begin to work until they reach five times the speed of sound.
All scramjets, including this one, use rockets to get the engine up to speed - scramjets don't work at subsonic speeds.
They're trying to test an engine design here. Would you rather have them spend 200M building a whole craft to test an engine that's likely to be used only once? They're a long way from an anything that could actually be used for something practical, so cheapest is best as long as it moves the ball forward.
Re:One million GBP? (Score:2)
Not this one [af.mil].
Re:One million GBP? (Score:2)
Re:One million GBP? (Score:3, Informative)
We're not, but the Qinetiq engine being tested tomorrow (supposed to be today, but delayed due to bad weather) is British.
The HyShot program is an international effort coordinated by several Australian universities, but particularly the University of Queensland, with testing performed at Woomera rocket range in South Australia. In another four days, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) engine will be tested and in June, our own Australian Defence Sc
Re:One million GBP? (Score:2)
Re:One million GBP? (Score:2)
Re:One million GBP? (Score:3, Funny)
Why crash it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why crash it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what a waste (Score:2)
which mean in order to compete, they will need to by more of these planes, which means more jobs, and probably far more them 1million in taxes.
People probably said the same thing about the Moon Launch, but we have returned over 15 dollars for every dollar spent in taxes on the new industries the Moon program created.
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:2)
Not particularly practical, I'd say.
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:2)
Not really.
All you need is enough parachute to slow you down to a survivable impact speed. Maybe some control surface to level you out and aerobrakes to slow you down before the chute deploys. Not even a wing really. Just enough control to send it arcing up again, and enough brake to keep the second descent slow, like a shuttlecock. Military air-to-air missiles commonly have very small control surfaces, even though they travel at Ma
Re:Weapon? (Score:3, Funny)
NeoThermic
Dee You See Tee (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, Duct tape can contain nucular explosions. Duct tape can be used for anything*!
* except taping ducts; it's no good at all for that.
Re:Dee You See Tee (Score:2)
Re:Dee You See Tee (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just use NASA (Score:3, Funny)